Erotic Counter Education is the educational position of the late Ilan Gur- Ze'ev. In ECE Gur-Ze'ev combines two opposing positions in the philosophy of education, one teleological and anti-utopian, the other teleological and utopian. In light of this unique combination, I ask what mediates between these two poles and suggest that the answer lies in the concept of eros. Following a preliminary presentation of the concept of eros in ECE, I define it as a form of transcendental cognition that distinguishes (...) between ‘what is to be perceived’, conceptual and human, and ‘what is not to be perceived’, divine and absolute. I subsequently show how the ‘nature’ of this conception of eros permits the establishment of a normative meta-theory of education that gains its strength from critical theory and counter education. (shrink)

We agree with Clarke and Beck that the approximate number system represents rational numbers, and we demonstrate our support by highlighting the case of the empty set – the non-symbolic manifestation of zero. It is particularly interesting because of its perceptual and semantic uniqueness, and its exploration reveals fundamental new insights about how numerical information is represented.

Insular populations have traditionally drawn a lot of attention from epidemiologists as they provide important insights regarding transmission of infectious diseases and propagation of epidemics. There are numerous historical instances where isolated populations showed high morbidity once a new virus entered the population. Building upon that and recent findings that the activation of the behavioral immune system depends both upon one’s vulnerability and environmental context, we predicted that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, place of residence explains a significant proportion of variance (...) in preferred interpersonal distances, animosity toward strangers, and willingness to punish those who do not adhere to COVID-19 preventive measures. With 48 populated islands, Croatia provides a fruitful testing ground for this prediction. We also opted to explore relations among BIS-related variables and social cognitions in a more natural context than has previously been done. The study was conducted online, on Croatian residents, during April and May 2020. As expected, the BIS variables contributed significantly to preferred interpersonal distances, negative emotions toward strangers, and willingness to punish those who do not adhere to COVID-19 preventive measures. Furthermore, our results showed that geographical location explained a significant amount of variance in preferred social distances and negative emotions toward foreigners. As Croatian islands are extremely frequent travel destinations, these differences between mainlanders and islanders cannot be explained by the lack of exposure to foreigners. Additionally, we found that scores on preferred interpersonal distances, pathogen disgust, and germ aversion were significantly higher compared to those obtained in Croatian samples before the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, men scored higher in perceived infectability than before the COVID-19 pandemic, and women did not, which reflects the objectively higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 for men than for women. Taken together, our results support the notion that BIS is a highly adaptive and context-dependent response system, likely more reactive in more susceptible individuals. (shrink)

Mental arithmetic is characterised by a tendency to overestimate addition and to underestimate subtraction results: the operational momentum effect. Here, motivated by contentious explanations of this effect, we developed and tested an arithmetic heuristics and biases model that predicts reverse OM due to cognitive anchoring effects. Participants produced bi-directional lines with lengths corresponding to the results of arithmetic problems. In two experiments, we found regular OM with zero problems but reverse OM with non-zero problems. In a third experiment, we tested (...) the prediction of our model. Our results suggest the presence of at least three competing biases in mental arithmetic: a more-or-less heuristic, a sign-space association and an anchoring bias. We conclude that mental arithmetic exhibits shortcuts for decision-making similar to traditional domains of reasoning and problem-solving. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S72-S78, March‐April 2022.

Background Informed consent is one of the key principles of conducting research involving humans. When research participants give consent, they perform an act in which they utter, write or otherwise provide an authorisation to somebody to do something. This paper proposes a new understanding of the informed consent as a compositional act. This conceptualisation departs from a modular conceptualisation of informed consent procedures. Methods This paper is a conceptual analysis that explores what consent is and what it does or does (...) not do. It presents a framework that explores the basic elements of consent and breaks it down into its component parts. It analyses the consent act by first identifying its basic elements, namely: a) data subjects or legal representative that provides the authorisation of consent; b) a specific thing that is being consented to; and c) specific agent(s) to whom the consent is given. Results This paper presents a framework that explores the basic elements of consent and breaks it down into its component parts. It goes beyond only providing choices to potential research participants; it explains the rationale of those choices or consenting acts that are taking place when speaking or writing an authorisation to do something to somebody. Conclusions We argue that by clearly differentiating the goals, the procedures of implementation, and what is being done or undone when one consent, one can better face the challenges of contemporary data-intensive biomedical research, particularly regarding the retention and use of data. Conceptualising consent as a compositional act enhances more efficient communication and accountability and, therefore, could enable more trustworthy acts of consent in biomedical science. (shrink)

Background:Attitudes of nurses towards death and related concepts influence end-of-life care. Determining nurses’ views and attitudes towards these concepts and the factors that affect them are necessary to ensure quality end-of-life care.Objectives:The purpose of this study was to determine nurses’ views and attitudes about death, dying patient, euthanasia and the relationships between nurses’ characteristics.Methods:Participants consist of the nurses who volunteered to take part in this descriptive study from 25 hospitals which has a paediatric or adult intensive care unit and located (...) within the boundaries of Ankara, Turkey. ‘Nurse Information Form’ and ‘Attitude Scale about Euthanasia, Death and Dying Patients ’ were used as data collection tool.Ethical consideration:Written permissions were received from the ‘Noninterventional Clinical Researches Ethics Board’ of authors’ university and education councils of each hospital. Informed consent was obtained from participants.Findings:It is found that there are statistically significant difference among the factors of marital status, having a child, years of experience, bereavement experience, affected by working with dying patient, definition of euthanasia, views about patients who are appropriate for euthanasia, views about patients who desire to die and feeling need for counselling on these concepts according to the mean total score of nurses’ attitudes about euthanasia, death and dying patient.Conclusion:The results indicate that nurses are negatively affected to face the concepts of death, euthanasia and work with dying patient. This is reflected in their attitude. In order to gain positive attitude towards death, dying patient and euthanasia, the implementation of training and consulting services to nurses at appropriate intervals during both education and professional life are required. (shrink)

In this issue of The Journal of Clinical Ethics, we offer a variety of perspectives on the moral and medical responsibilities of professionals with regard to a woman’s choice of where she will birth her baby. The articles in this special issue focus on place of birth, but they have larger resonance for clinicians whose decisions about providing the best possible care require them to sort through evidence, consider their own possible biases and the limitations of their training, and balance (...) the wishes of their patients with the demands of colleagues, hospitals, and insurers. The articles published in this special issue of The Journal of Clinical Ethics will help those who wrestle with such dilemmas in everyday clinical decision making. (shrink)

BackgroundWe assessed potential consent bias in a cohort of > 40,000 adult patients asked by mail after hospitalization to consent to the use of past, present and future clinical and biological data in an ongoing ‘general consent’ program at a large tertiary hospital in Switzerland.MethodsIn this retrospective cohort study, all adult patients hospitalized between April 2019 and March 2020 were invited to participate to the general consent program. Demographic and clinical characteristics were extracted from patients’ electronic health records (EHR). Data (...) of those who provided written consent (signatories) and non-responders were compared and analyzed with R studio.ResultsOf 44,819 patients approached, 10,299 (23%) signed the form. Signatories were older (median age 54 [IQR 38–72] vs. 44 years [IQR 32–60], p <.0001), more comorbid (2614/10,299 [25.4%] vs. 4912/28,676 [17.1%] with Charlson comorbidity index ≤ 4, p <.0001), and more often of Swiss nationality (6592/10,299 [64%] vs. 13,813/28,676 [48.2%], p <.0001).ConclusionsOur results suggest that actively seeking consent creates a bias and compromises the external validity of data obtained via ‘general consent’ programs. Other options, such as opt-out consent procedures, should be further assessed. (shrink)

Evidence-based medicine (EBM), by its ability to decrease irrational variations in health care, was expected to improve healthcare quality and outcomes. The utility of EBM principles evolved from individual clinical decision-making to wider foundational clinical practice guideline applications, cost containment measures, and clinical quality performance measures. At this evolutionary juncture one can ask the following questions. Given the time-limited exigencies of daily clinical practice, is it tenable for clinicians to follow guidelines? Whose or what interests are served by applying performance (...) assessments? Does such application improve medical care quality? What happens when the best interests of vested parties conflict? Mindful of the constellation of socially and clinically relevant variables influencing health outcomes, is it fair to apply evidence-based performance assessment tools to judge the merits of clinical decision-making? Finally, is it fair and just to incentivize clinicians in ways that might sway clinical judgment? To address these questions, we consider various clinical applications of performance assessment strategies, examining what performance measures purport to measure, how they are measured and whether such applications demonstrably improve quality. With attention to the merits and frailties associated with such applications, we devise and defend criteria that distinguish between justice-sustaining and justice-threatening performance-based clinical protocols. (shrink)

A variety of semiotic resources makes the construction of scientific knowledge possible and meaning-making resources are conveyed by certain semiotic modes. Next, numerous studies have demonstrated the pedagogical importance of gestures in the demonstration of scientific knowledge in the classroom. Drawing on social semiotic systemic functional theory and legitimation code theory, this study explores the types and the role of gestures in the semiotic construction of scientific knowledge in pedagogic semiosis and their pedagogical values for the meaning-making of science content. (...) With this aim, a gesture observation protocol (GOP) is developed to annotate and analyze data. Two science lectures, which are broadcast remotely for middle school students including gifted students, are observed. Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) method is employed to analyze and evaluate data. Results demonstrated that the deployment of gestures that contributes to the construction of scientific knowledge is low and deployed gestures mostly do not have pedagogical value. It is recommended that teachers should be more conscious and educated about deploying gestures to present scientific knowledge efficiently. (shrink)

Plasmodium falciparum is the most deadly human malarial parasite, responsible for an estimated 207 million cases of disease and 627,000 deaths in 2012. Recent studies reveal that the parasite actively regulates a large fraction of its genes throughout its replicative cycle inside human red blood cells and that epigenetics plays an important role in this precise gene regulation. Here, we discuss recent advances in our understanding of three aspects of epigenetic regulation in P. falciparum: changes in histone modifications, nucleosome occupancy (...) and the three‐dimensional genome structure. We compare these three aspects of the P. falciparum epigenome to those of other eukaryotes, and show that large‐scale compartmentalization is particularly important in determining histone decomposition and gene regulation in P. falciparum. We conclude by presenting a gene regulation model for P. falciparum that combines the described epigenetic factors, and by discussing the implications of this model for the future of malaria research. (shrink)

Recueil de textes écrits par des intimes du philosophe, à l'occasion du dixième anniversaire de sa mort : Jeannette Colombel, Jean-Pierre Faye, Jean-Luc Nancy ou encore Jacques Derrida, Roger-Pol Droit, Fanny Deleuze...

Text John Toland a jeho Křesťanství bez mystérií sestává ze dvou provázaných částí. První část představuje stručné biografické pojednání o Johnu Tolandovi (1670–1722), v němž se mimo jiné snažíme předložit obecný úvod do jeho myšlení. Druhá část pak nabízí první český překlad předmluvy k Tolandovu nejznámějšímu spisu Christianity not Mysterious (1696), který je považován za základní impulz deistické diskuze na Britských ostrovech.

El derecho, como lenguaje, cumple diferentes funciones comunicacionales que logra, en buena medida, a través del uso de herramientas y dispositivos narrativos. Entre ellos se destacan las ficciones jurídicas, las cuales, lejos de retratar la realidad, buscan crear una verdad jurídica. En el caso de las ficciones constitucionales, éstas son, con frecuencia, malinterpretadas, lo que lleva a su degeneración. En este texto, más allá de ofrecer un acercamiento conceptual a la figura de las ficciones constitucionales, se ofrece un análisis introductorio (...) en cuanto a la forma en la que ha ocurrido esto en el contexto del nuevo constitucionalismo latinoamericano. (shrink)